The increasing use of renewable energies as a source of electricity has led to a fundamental transition of the power supply system. The integration of fluctuating weather-dependent energy sources into the grid already has a major impact on its load f...
Topography complicates the modeling and retrieval of land surface albedo due to shadow effects and the redistribution of incident radiation. Neglecting topographic effects may lead to a significant bias when estimating land surface albedo over a sing...
Cloud properties and the Earth’s radiation budget are defined as essential climate variables by the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS). The cloud albedo is a measure for the portion of solar radiation reflected back to space by clouds. This infor...
Photovoltaic (PV) modules have emerged as a promising technology in the realm of sustainable energy solutions, specifically in the harnessing of solar energy. Photovoltaic modules, which use solar energy to generate electricity, are often used on ter...
The reflective property (albedo) of the ground plays an important role in the performance of bifacial photovoltaic modules. Snow, as a natural light-colored surface, reflects most of the light that falls on it. However, snow does not have a fixed alb...
Land surface albedo is a significant regulator of climate. Changes in land use worldwide have greatly reshaped landscapes in the recent decades. Deforestation, agricultural development, and urban expansion alter land surface albedo, each with unique...
The rapid development of photovoltaic (PV) powerplants in the world has drawn attention on their climate and environmental impacts. In this study, we assessed the effects of PV powerplants on surface temperature using 23 largest PV powerplants in the...
High quality data of surface radiation is a prerequisite for climate monitoring (Earth radiation budget) and solar energy applications. A very common method to derive solar surface irradiance is the Heliosat method, a one channel approach for the ret...
To examine the evidence of global warming, in recent years, there has been a growing interest in the statistical analysis of time-dependent meteorological data. In this paper, for 116 observational stations in the world, sequential variations of the...
In recent years, many new districts in urban centres have been planned and constructed to reshape the structure and functions of specific areas. Urban regeneration strategies, planning and design principles have to take into account both socioeconomi...
The albedo of boreal forests depends on the properties of the forest and is a key parameter for understanding the climate impact of forest management practices at high northern latitudes. While high-resolution albedo retrievals from satellites remain...
Bifacial photovoltaic panels are preferred over monofacial panels due to the ability of their back surfaces to absorb radiation and generate electricity. However, optimizing the rear-side energy contribution remains a critical area of research. This...
Surface albedo plays a controlling role in the surface energy budget, and albedo-induced radiative forcing has a significant impact on climate and environmental change (e.g., global warming, snow and ice melt, soil and vegetation degradation, and urb...
Urban green spaces (UGSs) are a vital component of urban landscapes nowadays, with an impact on energy distribution in cities and local climate regulation. This study aims to quantify the thermal and optical behavior of various materials in a small-s...
Forest ecosystems critically regulate land surface temperature (LST) from local to regional scales. Over the last three decades (1986–2016), increasingly frequent and severe disturbances have substantially altered the European forest canopy str...
Accurate time-domain photovoltaic (PV) models are needed to evaluate performance under outdoor variability beyond STC datasheet conditions. This paper presents a traceable modeling workflow based on the standard single-diode formulation, implemented...
The biogeophysical effects of severe forestation are quantified using a new ensemble of regional climate simulations over North America and Europe. Following the protocol outlined for the Land-Use and Climate Across Scales (LUCAS) intercomparison pro...
This paper explores the relationship between land cover change and albedo, recognized as a regulating ecosystems service. Trends and relationships between land cover change and surface albedo were quantified to characterise catchment water and carbon...
The built environment influences urban quality of life, particularly through material properties and design decisions that affect thermal comfort, energy consumption, and environmental performance. Among the physical parameters shaping urban microcli...
The reflectance anisotropy effect on albedo retrieval was evaluated using the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) bidirectional reflectance distribution functions (BRDFs) product, and archetypal BRDFs. Shortwave-band archetypal BRDF...
The urban heat island (UHI) effect increases the ambient temperatures in cities and alters the energy budget of building materials. Urban surfaces such as pavements and roofs absorb solar heat and re-emit it back into the atmosphere, contributing tow...
Urban Heat Island (UHI) is influenced by urban form, geometry, and the properties of surfaces. Retroreflective (RR) materials have been proposed as a countermeasure to UHI, thanks to their optical property of reflecting most of the incident solar ene...
This work investigates the influence of ground albedo on the solar radiation obtained by surfaces mounted on fixed-tilt-to-south, one-axis, and two-axis systems. To do this, estimation of the solar radiation difference is performed by applying real a...
Climate change results from disruptions in Earth’s radiation energy balance. Radiative forcing is the dominant factor of climate change. Yet, most studies have focused on radiative effects within the calculated actual albedo, usually overlookin...
The urban heat island effect poses a growing threat to human society, especially in densely populated and developed megacities. With the introduction of the Local Climate Zones (LCZ) framework, new perspectives and findings have been brought to urban...
Today societies face an unprecedented challenge to limit global warming and restore agricultural soils. Recent studies show that the introduction of cover crops over Europe could result in a cooling impact due to an increase in soil organic carbon st...
The widespread use of solar-reflective concrete pavements can mitigate climatic change and urban heat islands (UHI) by cooling the pavement surfaces that are made of concrete instead of asphalt. The methodology that was followed is based on the compa...
The rapid loss of Arctic Sea ice cover and thickness diminishes the surface albedo, which increases the ocean’s absorption of solar heat and exacerbates the Arctic amplification effect. According to the most recent research from the Intergovern...
As cities increasingly face extreme heat, urban planning plays a crucial role in mitigating the urban heat island effect through sustainable cooling strategies. This study investigates the combined potential of vegetation and high-albedo surfaces to...
In Mediterranean cities, high solar radiation combined with limited shading and vegetation intensifies the urban heat island (UHI) phenomenon. As the road network often covers a large portion of the cities’ surfaces and is mostly constructed us...
Bi-hemispherical reflectance (BHR), in the land surface research community also known as “white-sky albedo”, is independent of the directions of incidence and viewing. For vegetation canopies, it is also nearly independent of the leaf angle distribut...
In this work, the absorption Ångström exponent (AAE), extinction Ångström exponent (EAE), and single-scattering albedo (SSA) of black carbon (BC) with different coating materials are numerically investigated. BC with different c...
The UV-Index (UVI) is aimed at the prevention of skin cancer as well as other negative implications of ultraviolet radiation exposure. In order to support health related applications, assessments and planning that rely on long term data in high spati...
Pectin was extracted from citrus pomelo waste, and the effects of calcium ions (Ca2+) on the gelation and hydrogels properties were investigated over a pH range of 3.2–8 by using viscoelastic analysis. The gelatinization of Ca2+-pectin was exam...
For some time, there has been a slow but gradual rise in the average temperature of the entire globe, a “global warming”, in fact, the result of human and natural processes that have been producing this phenomenon for decades. Since they...
28 September 2016
In a recent study, melanoma incidence rates for Austrian inhabitants living at higher altitudes were found to increase by as much as 30% per 100 m altitude. This strong increase cannot simply be explained by the known increase of erythemally-weighted...
Increasing surface reflectivity in urban areas can decrease ambient temperature, resulting in reducing photochemical reaction rates, reducing cooling energy demands and thus improving air quality and human health. The weather research and forecasting...
Numerous studies have explored the cooling and energy-saving effects of vegetation and reflective materials under extreme heat conditions in urban residential areas. However, few have explored the synergistic effects of vegetation and albedo, particu...
The issue for the validation of land surface remote sensing albedo products over rugged terrain is the scale effects between the reference albedo measurements and coarse scale albedo products, which is caused by the complex topography. This paper ill...
The boreal–alpine treeline is a fine-spatial heterogeneous ecotone with small single trees, tree clusters and open snow surfaces during wintertime. Due to climate change and decreased grazing of domestic animals, the treelines expand both upwar...
The absorbing and scattering nature of aerosols affects the total radiative forcing and is quantified by single scattering albedo (SSA), which is defined as the absorption to total extinction ratio. There are limited measurements of SSA in the ultrav...
Decreasing sea ice and snow cover are reducing the surface albedo and changing the Arctic surface energy balance. How these surface albedo changes influence the planetary albedo is a more complex question, though, that depends critically on the modul...
Land surface shortwave broadband albedo is a key parameter in general circulation models and surface energy budget models. Multispectral satellite data are typically used to generate broadband albedo products in a three-step process: atmospheric corr...
In polar regions, positive feedback of snow and ice albedo can intensify global warming. While recent significant decreases in Arctic surface ice albedo have drawn considerable attention, Antarctic surface albedo variability remains underexplored. He...
Albedo is one of the key parameters in the surface energy balance and it has been altered due to urban expansion, which has significant impacts on local and regional climate. Many previous studies have demonstrated that changes in the urban surface a...
Urban heat islands have become a growing concern in many cities around the world. Pervious pavements have been proposed as a potential solution to mitigate this effect, but their effectiveness in reducing surface temperatures is still uncertain. This...
Snow albedo feedback is one of the most crucial feedback processes that control equilibrium climate sensitivity, which is a central parameter for better prediction of future climate change. However, persistent large discrepancies and uncertainties ar...
As an indicative parameter that represents the ability of the Earth’s surface to reflect solar radiation, albedo determines the allocation of solar energy between the Earth’s surface and the atmosphere, which plays an important role in bo...
Land albedo is an essential variable in land surface energy balance and climate change. Within regional land, albedo has been altered in Greenland as ice melts and runoff increases in response to global warming against the period of the pre-industria...
We present technical advances and methods to measure effective broadband physical albedo in snowy mountain headwaters using a prototype dual-sensor pyranometer mounted on an Autonomous Aerial Vehicle (an AAV). Our test flights over snowy meadows and...
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